Back in January, there was a debate between podcaster and comedian Dave Smith and Maine State Senator Eric Brakey.
The debate was whether people in the Ron Paul liberty movement should focus on the Republican Party (GOP) or the Libertarian Party (LP). Brakey argued for using the Republican Party to advance a libertarian agenda, while Smith argued for using the LP.
Dave Smith, for the last couple of years, has been advocating a takeover of the Libertarian Party. There is already a good faction in the Mises Caucus, which is the more radical wing of the LP. You could say it is the libertarian wing of the Libertarian Party.
Dave Smith, Tom Woods, Scott Horton, and much of the Mises Caucus promoted the candidacy of Jacob Hornberger in the last election. He came somewhat close to winning the nomination, but it ended up being Jo Jorgensen.
While I was disappointed in the Jorgensen campaign and ended up not voting for her, I thought her candidacy was a move in the right direction after having Gary Johnson and Bill Weld in 2016.
Spike Cohen was the VP nominee in 2020. While I disagreed with some of the messaging coming from Cohen, he is a more radical libertarian (in a good way) than what we’ve seen in quite a while. So again, it was a move in the right direction.
Brakey argued that libertarians should focus on taking over the GOP because it is a two-party system and that is where we can have the most impact.
He cited Ron Paul’s campaign (or campaigns) for president on the Republican ticket as the best educational endeavor for liberty. I agree with this. If you can copy Ron Paul, then I think someone should do it. But who can copy him? Who can become a principled congressman and then get on the debate stage in Republican primaries? If someone can do it, then they should try to emulate him and use the Republican Party.
If you are running for local office, then I do generally think that running as a Republican is a better bet. So on a local level, I agree with Brakey. In terms of political strategy, I generally agree with Brakey.
However, Brakey also admits that it is easy to take over the LP. He asks, “What’s step two?”
He actually answered his own question in the debate when he admitted that the LP presidential campaign can be used as educational outreach.
The answer to his question of what’s next is easy. The answer is that you put up a Harry Browne like candidate for president and spread the message, which is essentially what Dave Smith argued.
Imagine if the LP had had a really strong candidate in 2020. Imagine if someone like Harry Browne or Ron Paul had been the candidate. Mary Ruwart ran for the nomination in 2008 on the heels of the Ron Paul presidential run. If she had been the nominee then, I believe Ron Paul would have endorsed her and she would have received millions of votes that year.
If the LP had someone in the 2020 race who continually spoke against the lockdowns and in favor of small businesses, I think that person would have done significantly better. But even better than that, we would now likely have tens of thousands of business owners sympathetic to the libertarian message at the very least. Some of them probably would have converted into radical libertarians if they had heard someone defending property rights and freedom of association as an argument against lockdowns.
Overall, the debate was good and polite. There was no name calling. Dave Smith and Eric Brakey respect each other and mostly agree with each other in terms of policy and philosophy. Their difference is a matter of tactics. One thinks people should focus on the GOP, while the other wants to focus on the LP.
Again, if you are running for local political office or trying to effect change locally, it is probably better to join with the Republicans. If you want a widespread movement to spread the message about liberty, and assuming you can’t repeat what Ron Paul did, then I think it is better to join the LP.
It would only take a couple of hundred more radical libertarians at this point to join the LP and radically change the direction of the party and return something resembling the Harry Browne days.
The difference between now and 1996 and 2000 (when Harry Browne ran) is that the internet is now widespread and we are post Ron Paul Republican presidential campaigns.
Due to alternative media and the explosion of the libertarian movement from the Ron Paul campaigns, there are hundreds of thousands – or perhaps millions – of libertarians who didn’t exist back in the year 2000.
If we had a principled libertarian who is a good communicator at the top of the ticket of the LP, this person could have a significant impact. The person wouldn’t win the presidency, but he or she could convert millions of more people towards libertarianism. I also think a lot of Trump followers would be sympathetic to the message in the future, especially if nobody named Trump is running on the Republican ticket.